Belle.

Scone Palace is one of the finest examples of late Georgian Gothic style in the UK and is the family home of the earls of Mansfield whose family name is Murray and who still reside in the Palace apartments for part of the year. In the Ambassadors Room in the Palace you will find a painting commissioned by William Murray the 1st Earl of Mansfield, who was at the time Lord Chief Justice of England. The painting by Johann Zoffany is of two young female members of William Murray's family. One of which is Lady Elizabeth Murray daughter of David Murray the 2nd Earl of Mansfield the other, more interestingly is Dido Elizabeth Belle. Born in the West Indies she was the illegitimate mixed race daughter of Williams’s nephew Sir John Lindsay who acknowledged her as his daughter and took her to the family home at Kenwood House in North London and begged his Uncle and Aunt to take her in to their guardianship. He died shortly after.

 

The original main entrance to Scone Palace.

The film stars, amongst others, the British born stage and screen actress Gugo Mbatha-Raw as Belle, Tom Wilkinson as William Murray, Emily Watson as his wife, Matthew Goode as John Lindsay and Sarah Gabon as Dido's cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray.

 

Scone Palace.

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Very little is known about the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle but to their great credit writer Moissen Sagay and director Amma Asante manage to weave an enjoyable and moving story based around the famous painting. Period dramas are not always my thing but the story of Belle (2014) has a certain depth because its based on true events about the emancipation of slaves and the 18th century social order of wealth and privilege as well as benefiting from a social consciousness.

The Book Thief.

My opening film at 2014’s Glasgow Film Festival was the Downton Abbey director Brian Percival's The Book Thief (2013). Adapted by Michael Petroni from a best selling novel by Australian author Markus Zusak published in 2005. Narrated by Death and set in Germany during World War 2 it describes 12 year old Liesel Meminger's relationship with her working class foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, after her younger brother dies and her mother has to go into hiding because of her communist beliefs. Liesel also forms a relationship with Rudy Steiner a young blond German boy eight months her senior who falls in love with her the moment they meet. But when Hans decides to repay an old debt by sheltering a young Jew putting the whole family in danger. Meanwhile Liesel's growing love of books leads her to form a relationship with the local Burgomasters wife.

 

A family's safety is put at risk....

....when they hide a young jewish boy in their basement.

The film starts with The Narrator reminding us that 'death is inevitable' but in this observers opinion this rather melodramatic voice over by the English stage actor Roger Allam, who has also appeared in three Ken Loach films including 2012 The Angels Share, is not required because of its daft above the clouds fairy tale approach which does tend to reverberate throughout the movie treating the Nazi persecution of the Jews in a particularly handed fashion. My other problems with Percival's film is that it comes across as very bookish, giving a chapter orientated approach to the story telling, and the films strange combination of English and German accents and on screen subtitles. Bearing in mind that the complete story was shot and filmed in Germany it would have been better to have German actors and therefore subtitles. But let's not take anything away from the cast. Sophie Nelisse plays Liesel, Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson excel as her foster parents with Ben Schnetzer the Jewish refugee Max and Nico Liersch as Rudy. Similar to the Boy in Striped Pyjamas (2008) and Lore (2012) the story is related from a child's prospective.

Oranges and Sunshine

The Child Migrants Trust.

In 1986 a Nottingham social worker involved in post-adoption support was contacted by a women from Australia who told her that at the age of four she had been shipped, along with other children, to a children’s home in Australia and was now looking for help in tracing her parents in Britain. This was the beginning of Margaret Humphreys investigation into a situation that she had no idea had taken place. Home Children is the common term used to describe the British governments child migration programme that involved forcibly relocating poor and under privileged children to Australia, Canada, New Zealand the former Rhodesia and other parts of what was the British Commonwealth. Often the parents had no idea that their offspring was being deported being told that they were being placed for adoption in the UK, the children were often informed that their parents were dead. Humphreys believes that up to 150,000 children were involved in the scheme with approximately 7000 ending up in Australia, some of the kids were as young as three years old! Then as now with government cutbacks aimed at the more vulnerable members of our society the motive behind the policy was saving money. It was cheaper to care for these very young migrants overseas. The cost was estimated at £5 per day to keep a child on welfare in a British institution, but only the equivalent of 50p in an Australian one. Many of the children experienced neglect and abuse particularly, it is alleged, in certain Catholic institutions run by the so-called Christian Brothers where many of the children were housed.

Children on their way to a better life!!!!!!!!

The treatment of these children brings to mine certain aspects of the Holocaust or the inhuman treatment of the Aboriginal children depicted in the Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) not forgetting the Magdalene laundries when Peter Mullan pulled at our collective consciences with The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

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Oranges and Sunshine (2010) is based on Margret Humphreys book Empty Cradles and tells the story of the formation and early struggles of the Child Migrants Trust, at times against overwhelming odds and with little regard to her own well being or safety. Emily Watson gives a brilliant performance as Humphreys, highlighting the women’s courage and compassion, and there’s great support from Hugo Weaving and David Wenham as grown up migrant children. Jim Loach is a welcome addition to the ranks of British directors that can make a serious heartfelt drama. Its not an easy watch, constantly pulling at your heartstrings, but exceptionally well done and tremendously moving, revelling a scandal that had been swept under the carpet by successive governments on both sides of the world. My own Uncle was deported to Australia when he was 13/14 years old, admittedly a long time before the period in which Loach's film is based, and rediscovered his family many years later!